Tuesday, 9 October 2018

Session 199 - Are You Ready For Your Bath aka The Time POWERLAD Almost Died

Holy shit imagine if POWERLAD had died here! Not what I expected from those shitty giant ticks honestly, but they rolled GOOD.

This session's near death experience has spooked the party, especially since POWERLAD's a shrivelled barely-living husk clinging to life. Looks like it'll be a trip back to Moondin and/or Fortress-City Fate, awash with new god-powers.

I honestly had never considered that players might manage to ally with angels but here we are!

- POWERLAD and Andromeda munch on rations as Styx and his disciples fill out into the room in the depths of Dwimmermount. Tattered web, frog corpses, and pools of blood cover the floor. The battle against the frog monsters here was close-fought and desperate. (50 exp)- Zena emerges into the remains of the chaos, wielding the Control Rod and wearing the skin-tight hazard suit over her dwarf-sized chainmail top. She licks her lips at the sight of all the frog meat. (50 exp)- Red lighting flickers on and hatches lock shut, but a wave of the control rod allows access! She waves the rod across an unexplored door and the internal locking mechanisms click open! (50 exp)- She opens it and smells the pungent musk of a female frog monster very briefly before the bubble-helmet of her suit manifests around her head. Environmental hazard detected! (50 exp)- She pokes her head into the room and sees a few frog monsters accompanied by one of their females! Spooked and unaffected by the pheromones, Zena ducks out and closes the door swiftly behind her! (50 exp)

- She waves the control rod and the door re-locks. The flame of her torch burns pink as it burns the pheremones that wafted from the door. Maybe another way! (50 exp)--- Godspeed You! Black Emperor- The emergency lighting has flickered off and the other hatches are unlocked, so another door is tried. This one leads into a room with shelves and a strange black altar. (50 exp)

- Most interestingly, the altar is carved with a symbol that combines the cross-and-circle of Terms Termax with a pentagram. The walls are lined with metal shelves. (50 exp)- POWERLAD puts a finger to his ear and calls Hyper-Jesus, Terms Termax Himself, for assistance. (50 exp)- Hyper-Jesus bloviates for a time about how POWERLAD is his true scion and heir, and informs him that touching the altar will bring him great power. The crass divide between Law and Chaos is an illusion - the almighty Terms Termax cares not for such arbitrary distinctions. (50 exp)- POWERLAD tests the theory and touches the altar - finding himself healed but taking a point of Wisdom damage in exchange. Terms Termax tells him that he is growing more powerful in the light. (50 exp)

- Styx takes a moment to pray to the Dead God and ask him about all this shit. The connection is spotty down here, lots of static, but from the words that get through the Dead God is no fan of Terms Termax. (50 exp)- POWERLAD is asked about his companions and makes sure he doesn’t mention the non-human contingent - Terms Termax is evidently a human-supremacist. (50 exp)- Leaving well enough alone for now, POWERLAD logs off and decides not to touch the altar further. They set off down the connecting corridor towards a door hatch. (50 exp)--- The Floor is Water

- The emergency lighting and locked doors engage again. Something’s got to be up with the wiring in this place! The control rod unlocks the clamps though, and the door can be opened. (50 exp)- Zena steps into the airlock portion and tries to open the door on the other side, but it’s really heavy. POWERLAD engages super strength and assists! (50 exp)- As the door ekes open, water begins to pour through around the seal! It’s waist high and incredibly, painfully cold. (50 exp)- Zena’s suit puffs out around her, creating an air buffer between the freezing water and her flesh. It’s effective, but uses up precious oxygen. (50 exp)- POWERLAD retreats with the rest of the party, leaving Zena in her cold resistant suit to hold the door open and let the water flood in. As it equalises, the door gets easier to open. (50 exp)- POWERLAD uses his glyph-bending abilities to create a large stone plateau in the altar room, allowing everyone to stay above the freezing water. (50 exp)- With the water levels finally equalised, Zena looks out into the next chamber. Water is waist-high. Dead ratmen float in the cold water. On one of them, a very full but very desperate giant tick bobs about on its ratman island. (50 exp)- A large floor to ceiling crack in the corner of the room swarms with insects keeping out of the cold. On the ceiling, emaciated giant ticks swarm, desperate to escape. (50 exp)

- POWERLAD comes forward, creating stepping stones with his runes, intending to close the crack which is surely letting the water into the area. As he does so, one of the ticks leaps from the ceiling towards Zena! (50 exp)

- Zena ducks behind the door in time. She hears its little body clang off the metal door and splosh into the water. It dies swiftly, frozen to death, but the splash of its landing douses her torch! (50 exp)- Styx follows, the body of his angel-bot high enough to let him wade. They discuss how to get rid of the ticks, a clear threat if they are to traverse the room. (50 exp)--- POWERLAD gets ticked off- Zena prepares her polearm and Styx deploys his angelbot’s cannons, aiming them at the ceiling and the crawling ticks. POWERLAD hands the lantern to Zena - glorious battle awaits! (50 exp)- Styx blasts a tick from the ceiling, it falls into the water and struggles as it dies. Zena pins one to the ceiling with her halberd and POWERLAD surges upwards on his dragon wings. His uppercut splatters bug guts all over! (50 exp)

- He continues forward in a glide, and three of the ticks drop onto his back! Other ticks leap onto Zena and Styx, suddenly spurred into motion! (50 exp)

- One the the ticks tears into Styx’s chain armour, ripping a hole and sticking its head into his sap-filled insides! Seems they don’t care if you’ve got blood or not! (50 exp)- POWERLAD is in trouble - the ticks are all over him. Their heads are biting deep - observers can see him emaciating before their very eyes, his blood being sucked up into the bulging blood-sacs on the ticks’ backs. (50 exp)

- He plummets towards the cold water, almost blacking out, the emaciated ticks desperately sucking him dry. This is the end of POWERLAD. Here, in the depths of Dwimmermount. Covered in giant ticks and about to perish in icy water. A last image of Bertha flashes before his eyes. (50 exp)--- You’re not alone!

- He hits the water and plunges in… but it’s warm? An orange glow suffuses him, the water bubbles around him. The ticks drop off in the water and scrabble around him. Is this heaven? (50 exp)- His vision blurring, he sees Bertha before him again… but it’s not Bertha! It’s Andromeda! She keeps her concentration on the magma rune below him, keeping the water from freezing! (50 exp)- Arms wrap around his body, cradling him safely. He feels himself hoisted into the air. Zena has him! He’s light. Far too light. Zena flees with him to safety. (50 exp)

- Styx rolls his angel-bot towards Andromeda, scooping her into the cockpit! The ticks struggle in the water as the heat disperses and returns the water to its freezing cold, struggling in the water as they die. (50 exp)- Andromeda thanks him and follows Zena. Styx turns and engages the angel’s cannons. Like shooting ticks in a barrel! (50 exp)

- Zena hops across the stepping stones, taking POWERLAD to the black altar. Hyper-Jesus’ voice booms in POWERLAD’s ear, although he’s lost so much blood he can barely concentrate. “Why did you not call on me, child? Let me heal you!” (50 exp)- Zena flops POWERLAD’s limp corpse on the altar and a miracle occurs! POWERLAD’s wounds close, his pained whimpers stop, and his corpse-white pallor begins to abate! The wisdom drain is savage, but necessary. (50 exp)- With his immediate wounds healed, they lay him on the stone island so he can recover. He’s markedly less buff than before - the blood loss will take some time to recover from. He’s also shivering badly - early signs of some disease. (50 exp)--- The Way Out is Through- With POWERLAD fucked up and in need of bed rest it’s time to leave this damned place. The frigid water has poured out of the door from the altar room - dead frog monsters bob about in the water on the way out. (50 exp)- Zena scouts ahead in her hazard suit, still puffed up to resist cold. She sees that the water’s cold enough to have an icy crust. Pushing past the dead frog bodies, she suddenly notices that the hatch she closed earlier is now open… (50 exp)- Movement beneath the surface! She stabs down and lances a frog monster in the foot! It splashes around on the surface and more frogs leap from the darkness! (50 exp)

- She spins her polearm, batting them away, and Styx sloshes in to help! He’s got a goblin on each shoulder of the angel, adding their rune attacks to his angel beams! The water explodes upwards as its hit, getting frozen in the stasis beams! It looks so sick. (50 exp)- Andromeda kisses POWERLAD on the forehead and leaves him the care of Styx’s disciples. She leaps through the door, punches off a wall, and summons an illusory ghost of POWERLAD to fight at her side! (50 exp)- They leap through the air in unison. The frog doesn’t believe in the illusory POWERLAD and Andromeda’s attacks are similarly ineffective. Fighting them underwater is impossible! (50 exp)- The waft of pheromones suffuses the air… the female frog monster is here! She surfaces, spraying pheromones, and disappears back underwater. Where is she?! (50 exp)- Styx and his goblins try an interesting tactic - blasting away at the water around the frogs! Huge chunks of water are blown out by explosion beams, much of it frozen by stasis. The frogs are vulnerable! (50 exp)- Undeterred, the frogs attack Zena! They clamp their teeth down on her arms, poison pulsing from their venomous teeth! She’s in trouble! (50 exp)- The frog queen surfaces again close to Styx. The pheromones take over the mind of one of the goblin minions… but a bitchslap from the other knocks him out of it! (50 exp)- Zena staggers, slashes at one with her halberd and fumbles! Her stumble manages to bring her halberd up in time to recover and crit one of the frogs! She continues through to impale its fellow, then nearly manages to bring her polearm to bear on the queen frog before passing out! (50 exp)- Her head hits the water but the hazard suit’s bubble is already deployed. She’s fine! Plus with all that air in there she floats easily. (50 exp)- The queen is still there, so the party begins blasting at the water via zany Battleships-style minigame! Andromeda hits a slimy leg and a goblin manages to blast a hole in the water right near her. (50 exp)

- The last they see of her is a shimmer underwater as the frog queen flees. Beaten, for now. (50 exp)

--- Get Me Out of Here!

- With Zena poisoned and POWERLAD barely mobile, it’s a good thing that the altar room was lined with deep metal shelves! Making them into makeshift stretcher-boats and hitching them to Styx’s angel is fairly easy, and soon they’re off to the stairs down. (50 exp)- The pillar room with the stairs is worryingly full of water. A slow-rising barrier of tough glass is preventing the water from flowing down the stairs. It’ll clearly be blocked soon, but for now there’s just space to get through. (50 exp)- They head through the fourth floor rooms towards the elevator, leaving a “look up!” message in the sigil room. (50 exp)- Some of the unicorn people are in the way, but quickly get out of the way when told about what’s going on upstairs. They’ve got bigger frogs to fry. (50 exp)- They reach the elevator and Styx gets safe passage for him and his allies out of the mountain. (50 exp)

--- World Eater- The plan is to sack off the Azoth plan and head back to Moondin. Styx is the Messiah now, after all, and POWERLAD has a direct line to Hyper-Jesus. Surely that’ll be enough? (50 exp)- Looking out from the peak of Dwimmermount, the world’s in a bad way. Huge fissures break the landscape. Tentacles writhe. The Black Sun has crashed onto the Twinned Cities and shimmers like a heat haze. Flies feast on rotting plants and beasts alike. (50 exp)- Styx prays for information and learns many things - the angels will go haywire on the week of the 1st of June since there will be no god in the sky that week. The Red Elves are of Mars, and the gods defend the planet from them. The missiles are repurposed transport rockets used to resupply the gods in times past. (50 exp)- Shit’s getting real. Plan Azoth is a bust - it’s too dangerous down there and those fucking frogs are everywhere now. It’s time to return to Moondin and save the world some other way. (50 exp)